Vengeance. Mystery Writers of America Presents B00A25NLU4

team had traveled to a neighboring state for a regional tournament, child abduction and transporting a minor for the purposes of sexual concourse. This last one was a federal charge. At the judge’s discretion, Richard could be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
    “It’s come-to-Jesus time,” their lawyer had said, a phrase June had never heard in her life until that moment. “You can fight this and still go to jail, or you can take a deal, serve your time, and get on with your life.”
    There were other factors. Money from a second mortgage they had taken on the house would get them through jury selection. Obviously, Richard wasn’t allowed back at work or within three hundred yards of any of the girls. The board had told June they were thinking of “transferring her valuable skills” to a school that routinely ended up in the news for campus shootings and stabbings. Then there were the signs left in their front yard, the burning bag of shit on their front porch. Nasty phone calls. Deep scratches in the paint of their cars.
    “It’s like Salem,” June had muttered, and Richard agreed, making a comment that burning at the stake was preferable to being slowly drawn and quartered in front of a crowd of hysterical parents.
    June decided then and there to dig in her heels. They would fight this. They would live in a homeless shelter if that’s what it took to clear Richard’s name. She would not let them win. She would not let this lying, cheating whore who had been her daughter’s best friend take another life.
    She was certain then that Danielle had had something to do with Grace’s death. Had she taunted her? Had Danielle hounded Grace until Grace felt that picking up that straight razor and opening up her skin was the only way to save herself?
    Leading up to the trial, June was consumed with such hatred for Danielle Parson that she could not look at a blond, slight, simpering teenager without wanting to slap her. Danielle had always been mouthy, always wanted to push the limits. Her mother let her dress like a whore. She skipped class. She wore too much mascara. She was a hateful, hateful child.
    More obscure Latin: from
depositio cornuum,
“taking off the horns,” came
deposition.
    The twenty-one years since Richard’s conviction had given June plenty of time to reflect on what happened next. They were sitting at a table in the prosecutor’s conference room. Richard and June were on one side of the table — he because he was the accused, and June because she would have it no other way — while Danielle, Martha, and Stan Parson sat opposite. The lawyers were in between, lined up like dominoes ready to knock one another over with objections and motions to strike.
    June relished the prospect of confronting the girl face-to-face. She’d prepared herself in the mirror that morning, using her best teacher gaze, the one that caused students to stop in their tracks and immediately apologize even when they weren’t quite sure why.
    Cut the bullshit,
June wanted to say.
Tell the truth.
    There was no such confrontation. Danielle would not look anyone in the eye. She kept her hands folded in her lap, shoulders drawn into a narrow V. She had that fragility some girls don’t lose even when they cross into womanhood. She was the type who would never have to take out the trash or change a tire or worry about paying her bills because one flutter of her eyelashes would bring men running to her aid.
    June hadn’t seen Danielle since Grace’s funeral, when the girl had sobbed so uncontrollably that her father had to physically carry her out of the church. Recalling this scene, June experienced a revelation: Danielle was acting out of grief. Grace had been her best friend for almost a decade, and now she was gone. Danielle wasn’t hurt, at least not in the physical sense. She was mad that Grace was gone, furious at the parents who couldn’t prevent her death. There was no telling what reasons had clogged her mind. She obviously blamed Richard for Grace’s death. She was lost and confused. Children needed to know that the world was a place where things made sense. Danielle was still a child, after all. She was a scared little girl who didn’t know that before you could get out of a hole, you had to stop digging.
    In that crowded conference room, a tiny bit of June’s heart had opened up. She understood fury and confusion. She understood lashing out. She also finally understood